In the anarchic world of baseball, however, a team can be constructed with a Nick Johnson and a Jason Giambi sharing first base and designated hitter all season, then as a reward for getting to the World Series, the Yankees must make a choice when they play on the road.

The choice is an easy one, Joe Torre said Sunday night after the Yankees tied the World Series at one game apiece, before the players embarked for three straight night games in Miami, starting tonight.

Giambi is ''the guy that we really need to have in the middle of the lineup, whether he's getting a walk, whether he's getting a base hit,'' Torre said.

It did not matter that Johnson had three hits and is a superior first baseman to Giambi. Baseball forces the Yankees to revise the offense and defense that evolved over a 162-game season.

This ambivalence goes back to 1973, when the American League, in search of excitement, unleashed the designated hitter.

The National League, of course, plays real baseball, in which pitchers must hit and run and managers must make hard choices about pitching changes.

It was fun to see an athlete like Kerry Wood of the Cubs bash a home run on his own behalf in the seventh game of the National League Championship Series. Josh Beckett of the Marlins, who will hit tonight in his own park, has had two hits in the postseason and Dontrelle Willis, the Marlins' engaging rookie left-hander, batted .241 during the regular season. That's the way the game should be played.

''It's funny to see pitchers hit,'' said Derek Jeter, with a smirk after Sunday night's game.

It's even funnier to see Roger Clemens hit. That has happened exactly 20 times in his American League career, except for the unavoidable foray into interleague games, in which Clemens has four hits. Tomorrow night the big fellow gets to hit again, in what is almost surely his last major league start.

The comedy is watching some pitchers try to hit in the National League part of the World Series. The melodrama comes when respected American League regulars must sit out games on the road in late October.

For the first decade, baseball alternated the rule by years, meaning that a stalwart like Ken Singleton, who helped the Baltimore Orioles reach the 1983 World Series, wound up with two pinch-hitting calls, walking once.

They changed the rule in 1986, to allow teams to play by their league rules at home. This has caused American League mainstays like Don Baylor, Chili Davis and Cecil Fielder to disappear down the rabbit hole in the World Series.

Now it is happening to Johnson, a slick-fielding first baseman who batted .284 in 96 games despite injuries. Torre has finessed Johnson into his defense, even though Giambi would prefer to play the field. Now there is no choice.

''I love to play baseball,'' Johnson said the other night. ''I'd love to be in there. But that is how the game is structured. Jason is a great hitter and he'll play first base.''

Johnson and Giambi have both responded to Torre's subtle maneuvering. The manager dropped Giambi to seventh in the last game against the Red Sox; Giambi hit two homers to keep the Yanks alive. The manager dropped Johnson to eighth on Sunday night against the Marlins; Johnson pushed a surprise slump-breaking bunt down the third-base line and went on to get three hits.

''That's why he's the godfather,'' Giambi said of Torre.

Now Torre must make Johnson an offer he cannot refuse: sit tight. Maybe you'll get your chance. And if the World Series goes back to New York for the sixth and seventh games, you'll be back in there.

This is a strange way to run a sport. The best thing would be to revert to real baseball. The players association, however, would be loath to ever give up these 14 lucrative specialist jobs. The D.H. is here to stay -- in the American League.

By the way, did you hear that next year the Stanley Cup finals will drop the icing rule in the Western Conference games? The Kentucky Derby is going to run clockwise in alternate years. Soccer is using infinite overtime to settle ties every other World Cup. No tennis tie breakers at the United States Open in odd years. Dear goofy baseball is the inspiration for all this confusion.